Desmond Hume will be my constant.

My constant. Oh, my. What a sweet episode. Desmond has been one of the most mysterious and intriguing characters since the very first time we met him, brotha. He’s one of my favorites and I’m glad he’s probably one of the most important characters to the overall mythology that makes up Lost.

So, I think the question we should be asking after last week’s episode is, are we stuck in time? And is it possible, if the right conditions are set, for us to become unstuck? Desmond and Minkowski had the right conditions to start “traveling” to different portions of their lives, but I have to wonder if that’s only the beginning. Instead of “traveling,” what if we could eventually live every moment of our lives simultaneously? We’d essentially live forever. No doubt be mysterious to those around us who are not “enlightened.” Makes me think of Jacob. Maybe the cabin moves because he’s always going back and forth, changing things in the past that effect where the cabin is in the future.

I remember an episode from last season, when they found Karl strapped in the mind-warping chair in Room 23. One of the things being repeated over and over again was, “only fools are enslaved by time and space.”

Anyway, I think this particular episode answered a mystery that was presented a few episodes back: why the hell was Daniel Faraday crying when he watched the news that Oceanic Flight 815 was found? Remember that? Someone asked him, “why are you crying?” and he said, “I don’t know…”

I think I know!

If the note in his journal is any indication, he’s a time traveler, or will be soon. But even if he’s not, his meeting with Desmond changed his life. He knows his destiny — in 8 years, he’ll be on an island and meet Desmond, and have the opportunity to study the island and it’s effects on time travel (hence the payload experiment), and so when he saw the news that Oceanic Flight 815 had been found, that was the first piece of the puzzle that began to fall in place. He knew it was really happening, and it was only a matter of time before he was asked to go on an expedition and get on the island where he could do his research. And so he cried in happiness because his dream was coming true, just as Desmond told him.

And rather than explain all that, he just said, “I don’t know…” as in, “you wouldn’t understand…”

I could go on and on about the consequences of time travel and how it may explain everything, but it’s too confusing trying to keep it straight. Instead, I want to talk about how Michael is the “friend” on the boat.

So, here I go: Michael is the friend on the boat, and Ben’s informant. The heading Ben sent him on at the end of season two was not the heading Faraday gave. Ben sent Michael in the wrong direction. What that means is any body’s guess — maybe he time traveled to some other time where nobody would believe his story, or maybe there was another boat waiting for him. Either way, due to the build up, I’m convinced Michael is on the boat and will show up in two more episodes. I cannot wait.

Another theme of the overall Lost story is how “everything happens for a reason.” No other episode can fit into that theme more so than this one, and it was such a powerful payoff. Like Daniel watching the pieces start to fall in to place, when you really experience something and everything that’s happened to you in the past suddenly has meaning and makes sense, it really makes you utterly speechless.

“Trust me…”

“I do trust you, but you still have to remember that number…”

And Desmond looks up, and repeats the number he asked for 20 second ago for him, 8 years for Penny.

Then the phone rings, and rings, and rings, and Adam starts to cry, and Penny picks up, and it’s just “is that really you?” Desmond was able to get in touch with Penny due to everything that’s happened to him in the past, from the military discharge to the ship wreck to the hatch implosion.

And when the phone is ringing, they do a series of quick flashbacks to Desmond leaving Penny’s apartment and smiling. I think he was time traveling those flashbacks again as the phone rang, and he was smiling because he knew everything fell in to place just then. It also adds an interesting dynamic to the flashbacks and flash forwards — maybe they are actually time travels, but the characters just don’t realize it and think they are memories triggered by events on the island. Desmond is the only one who becomes “unhinged” and actually flies around the time line thanks to his exposure to the hatch’s magnetic energy discharge.

Either way, I think Daniel Faraday will answer most, if not all, of the island’s sci-fi mysteries. He’s the only newcomer that I completely trust.

Also, I read somewhere that the “Economist” that Ben sent Sayid to assassinate might be Charles Widmore, Penny’s dad, the man bidding on the Black Rock journal. What do you think? Makes sense, if he’s bidding on the journal to keep the location of the island to himself. What’s more, if he was bidding on the journal to find the location of the island, maybe he made up the entire “race around the world” story for Desmond and gave him the race track, knowing it would lead him right to the island so he’d be exiled.

But this is Lost, so there must be some bigger reason about why shipping Desmond away to an island was the only way to get him away from his daughter. Seems kind of extreme.